


sunset framed

by tonyang (kurusui)



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24640120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/pseuds/tonyang
Summary: Inevitably, two people who are meant to be together will find their way to each other.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox (Round 2)





	sunset framed

**Author's Note:**

> and I will get you, and get you alone  
> your name has echoed through my mind  
> and I just think you should, think you should know  
> that nothing safe is worth the drive— 
> 
> Written for [GG Jukebox Round 2](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ggjukebox2), inspired by Treacherous by Taylor Swift.

**2023**

Flower petals from congratulation bouquets litter the hall outside and only multiply in number as she gets closer to Nayeon's place. Jeongyeon is accosted as soon as she steps through the doorway. 

“Let’s go to Bali next week. It's our reward for making it through a full length contract!” Nayeon is already dressed the part in a backless midi, like she’s just waiting for her to agree so they can hop on a plane and lie on the beach for hours. Jeongyeon takes off her sweat-ridden baseball cap and sets her things down on the coffee table.

“Okay," she answers without questioning. “I’ll take my new film camera.”

“I’ve already gone on Youtube and watched so many vlogs,” Nayeon says. “Look at all the Instagram spots.” She thumbs quickly through the posts in a beach hashtag. Once she’s on a train of thought it will never stop until someone manually slams on the brakes.

“With or without security?” Jeongyeon asks, walking over to the kitchen bar and stealing chocolates out of the open truffle box.

“Without, duh,” Nayeon says, chasing after her. “No company cameras either. I negotiated for this. No more distractions.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“You have to learn to take risks, Jeongyeon,” Nayeon exclaims like it's obvious. “Otherwise you won’t get the full enjoyment out of life! And more than that...” She pauses, and smiles at the end. “I just want to go with no strings attached.”

Five minutes later they've booked tickets on Nayeon's laptop just because it's possible to for the first time, with no one to wait on and no one to answer to. “The taste of freedom is _so_ sweet.” Nayeon licks her fingers of melted chocolate obtrusively, prompting Jeongyeon to make a face and push her off the loveseat.

She ends up tangling her hair into a frizz when she falls on the carpet and glares at Jeongyeon, who's feeling like her lung will collapse in on itself from laughing so hard. “You’re a clown, Nayeon.”

“But you love that about me,” Nayeon says. 

“You were right,” Jeongyeon tells her, looking into her phone reflection at the chocolate smiley face drawn on her forehead, “when you said I love you much more than I like you. There is really no other word to describe why I put up with your incessant laughter at my expense.”

Nayeon grins, ego boosted to the ceiling. “I was so right then, and every time before that, too. You've always liked me even when you pretended to hate me.”

“I wouldn't go that far—”

“...but I've always needed you more.”

Jeongyeon hates when Nayeon does this because she can't agree that they mean everything to each other without it being cheesy and she can't refuse it without the ache of lying.

“Remember all those years ago when I begged you to stay in JYP as long as I was there?” Nayeon's head rests on Jeongyeon's jeans, waves of hair falling over her knees.

“You said I was a distraction, Nayeon.”

“A good distraction,” Nayeon affirms. “A distraction from the pain and a reason to stay. Because I felt like—”

“Don't make it sound like that. You knew you were destined to be a star, and...” Undeniably it was her own driving force.

“Yes, but it’s a lot easier when you have someone real and physically in front of you as a reminder of what you want to achieve.”

“Did I represent all you've ever wanted?”

“Have you ever dreamed about something more?”

“Dreams are just dreams,” Jeongyeon answers, getting up to wander around the room. “I like to think about reality.”

“You say that, and yet we stand here today,” Nayeon says, gesturing to the windows behind her. Jeongyeon looks out at the view of Seoul, surrounded by towering buildings that look like they could reach the clouds, people invisible past the dotty impressions of the ground. Nayeon bought this apartment herself. Jeongyeon swallows and knows.

“You fought for this,” Jeongyeon says, hand pressed against the glass. “You must be satisfied with what you've accomplished. You’ve worked hard.”

“But you know what? I couldn’t have done it without you, here, this whole time.” Nayeon speaks from behind her, but not far away enough that the words don't still send a shiver down her spine.

“We get it—”

“And besides that, you're a quiet strength to so many members. You've shaped our relationships, Jeongyeon. Our lives."

“Please don't say such kind things to me. It makes me think...” She hesitates.

“It makes you think you’re better than you are?” Nayeon asks, as serious as she's ever going to get.

And she turns around to finally face the girl talking to her: “It makes me want—” 

“Something that you can have but are too afraid to reach for?”

Somewhere in her heart Nayeon has always known her answers before Jeongyeon has even thought of the questions. And there is comfort in that she won't find anywhere else.

Jeongyeon breathes in deep. “I think I was meant to find you,” she says.

**2019**

“Nayeon, why do you—”

“Hm?” Nayeon tilts her head upward, focused on clearing Fancy on SSJYP’s hard difficulty. Her legs are strewn over the back of the couch, and she lies squarely on the middle of the seat in a way entirely contrary to its terms of use.

“...something you can’t even give?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Jeongyeon says from the kitchen table where she’d just finished lunch. Next to her Youtube is still open, recommendations of videos filling the home page. “Why are you playing that?”

“I need to stay sharp,” Nayeon answers, dropping the phone on the seat as it displays stars and point values, changing gears without any effort. “Will you make me a smoothie?” Her eyes crinkle up and she grins widely.

“You know the answer to that already.”

“It’s yes, isn’t it? Can you use fresh peaches instead of the canned ones, I know we have some from the last grocery spree.”

“I am not peeling peaches for you.”

“Even if I ask nicely?”

“Only the best for Princess Nayeon,” Jeongyeon says, already pulling open the refrigerator’s fruit drawer.

Nayeon jumps out of her resting position and shadows Jeongyeon in the kitchen so intensely that they almost bump into each other multiple times, even when Jeongyeon starts cutting the fruit. Of course Nayeon does not contribute productively.

“You seem troubled by something,” Nayeon observes. Jeongyeon doesn’t know how to put it into words.

“Are you ever tired of pretending that we’re...?” Her knife hesitates at the edge of the cutting board. In her mind she’s millimeters away from pressing ‘not interested’ next to dozens of videos.

“We're what?”

“Do you ever think about what it’d be like if we never wanted to be celebrities and never became them? What would we be like?”

Nayeon laughs like the answer comes easy to her. “We would never have known each other, and it would have been awful.” She’s right in the simplest of ways.

Sometimes when Jeongyeon opens her vault of memories late at night she remembers all the times Nayeon's approached her, from the first encounters that changed everything to yesterday's solicitation of her schedule from now on, all the while optimistic and idealistic, relentless, with all its faults.

Jeongyeon finds herself curling up in bed from the recollection of her, as lovely and beautiful as it is.

“Aren’t you glad it all turned out this way? It was meant to be.”

“Yeah.”

“Just imagine living without me,” Nayeon says. When Nayeon leaves her memories all of the color is stripped away, leaving a dull nostalgia she doesn't want any part of.

She scoffs instead, masking her sentimentality behind a facade of unaffectedness. “It's easy. You can move out right now if you want.”

“You’re—” Nayeon sputters, then tosses her head and loads the next SSJYP song on her phone. “Impossible. I refuse to be hurt by your heartless mockery of my honest feelings.”

Nayeon resolutely ignores Jeongyeon's attempt to apologize/harass her into failing her round of the game. But at the end she gives in like always, says she's sorry too, and thanks Jeongyeon just for her existence. The blended smoothie sits on the counter until the ice inside melts to water. It's a neverending cycle, fated to come around again.

**2015**

“Let’s go on a walk. After all, no one will recognize us,” Nayeon says in the early afternoon, thinking of how desperately the girls had to beg strangers to visit their showcase. “Who knows how long that will last.”

“Hopefully not that long,” Jeongyeon reflects. The expectations on them are that they will be known very well very quickly. Jeongyeon wants that too, but not the loss of independence and security.

In life and in show business, there is no such picking and choosing. Not long after they leave the dorm, the sun clouds over, and neither of them brought an umbrella.

“I have the perfect print back home,” Nayeon complains, standing still to watch the water collect on the surface of her palm. “My mother just bought it for me.”

“We can go back,” Jeongyeon offers.

“No, it's fine,” Nayeon says quickly. She grimaces and turns away. “I wanted to talk about something.”

The edges of Jeongyeon's bangs have already started to cling to each other from the drizzling rain. “Well, go on and make it fast then.”

“...That I was worried about,” she continues, clearly dragging it out.

Silence, except for the pattering of rain on the gravel path.

“Go on then?”

Nayeon bites her lip. “Never mind.”

“C'mon,” Jeongyeon says quietly. “It's alright.”

“You're so easy.”

“Huh?”

“Easy to get close to.” Jeongyeon has never thought this about herself, but— 

“I’m scared you know me too well now. I’m scared that—” Nayeon’s voice cracks here— “I’ll rely on you too much and that it’ll backfire on me. Or on us as a team. I don’t think people were meant to depend on each other this much.”

Nayeon starts walking again towards the bridge, not waiting for an answer. Jeongyeon lags behind, considering what she should say, not knowing what to do. “I think that's okay. Or maybe even a good thing. Trust is supposed to be really important in a group.”

“Don't ever leave me, Jeongyeon. I'm scared that I won’t know how to do it without you.”

Jeongyeon winces— it's so hard when you don't have the right words. “It will be okay. Eventually.”

“I’m scared that it’ll be hard, and one day you won’t be there to help me. But I think it’s only me that’s like this, which is why it sucks!”

“It’s not just you, Nayeon, that’s normal.”

Nayeon turns around, back to the stone wall rooted along the pathway. “Think about it. You've never admitted anything that makes you vulnerable.”

Jeongyeon is running completely on adrenaline when she decides to say this, but it feels like weights falling off her shoulders and being replaced with heavier ones. “Nayeon, you made it so complicated for me to want to give up.”

Nayeon is quiet for once.

“That’s good. I never knew you were so close to leaving.”

“I know how to look forward to the future.”

“You’re not fragile at all, Jeongyeon. You’re so brave and so strong.”

“I think," Jeongyeon starts, "the key is that you have to accept that fear and use it to your advantage. Don’t be afraid to let people know you.”

Nayeon looks wounded and lost and thunder rumbles in the distance, threatening lightning to come down any minute. She's soaking wet and yet it's the last thing on her mind: “You hate saying things as simple as that you love me even though it’s plain as day, how can you even try to tell me I should be that open?” 

“To be honest, Nayeon, I don't think it'll work unless we go all in. Unless we accept that in order to understand each other, work together— tolerate each other for the rest of our lives, we'll have to bare everything upfront. I have to know you, you have to know me, and everyone else in the team has to, too. And then so does our staff— and so will the fans— and so will the rest of the world—” 

“So you're saying there's no such thing as keeping secrets?”

Jeongyeon exhales, and the air in her chest feels heavy, like one of those weights is compressing in on her. “You have to tell me if you have any. Or someone else, but—”

“It'll be you, Jeongyeon.” Nayeon leans off the edge of the bridge, looking down at the flowing water below. “I promise it'll be you.”

**2011**

“Inevitably, two people who are meant to be together will find their way to each other,” Nayeon says, skipping along the road and swinging her schoolbag while Jeongyeon trails behind. Nayeon has too much energy today, making it impossible to keep up with her.

“I disagree,” she responds instinctively, figuring out the reasons why as she speaks. “How do you know people are meant for each other?”

“It just feels like it,” Nayeon tells her, hand to her chin thoughtfully. “You can’t imagine them apart, and they really belong together. You’ll know when you see it.”

"There’s no proof of that. I don’t see why the world would work like that.”

“Don’t you think it’s a beautiful way of looking at it?”

“Sure,” Jeongyeon answers. “But I think you’re too optimistic all the time, so I don’t trust your judgment.”

Nayeon stops in her tracks, turns to Jeongyeon and crosses her arms in a huff. 

“You trust me to lead the way home from school though.”

Jeongyeon ignores her and keeps walking. “That’s because you’re older and know it better.”

“But you don’t trust my opinions about love?”

“Don’t you think we’re too young to have ‘opinions about love’? Or at least claim to know the truth about it.”

Nayeon sighs loudly, forgetting she’s trying to practice maintaining her image. “You’re so boring, Yoo Jeongyeon.” 

“Hey!” Nayeon runs ahead, flying down the slope, and Jeongyeon tries to catch up but barely snags a strand of her hair.

With her hands on her thighs and gasping for air, she shouts, “THAT HURT, YOO JEONGYEON.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeongyeon says halfheartedly. “You’ll be okay, though.”

“Will I, though?” Nayeon asks. _"Will I?”_

“You will, I promise,” Jeongyeon says, and Nayeon hooks her arm back around hers.

“I forgive you.”

Nayeon’s MP3 player falls out of her bag pocket when she starts swinging it again, and Jeongyeon takes the liberty of plugging in her headphones and pressing play.

“Is this so you don’t have to hear me talk, ‘cause that’s not fair,” Nayeon complains. “At least give me an ear.” Jeongyeon hands over the left earbud.

“You don’t have bad taste in music,” Jeongyeon concedes. Nayeon socks her in the stomach, retracts her fist as Jeongyeon sputters, and settles back into a comfortable position.

“I hope we debut with this kind of song,” Nayeon says with a sigh.

The way Nayeon says it clinging to her side fills Jeongyeon with too much hope, so much that she’d rather not have any at all than feel deceived.

“You should let go,” Jeongyeon says, retracting into a shell she thought she had left behind a long time ago.

“What?”

“It’s scary.”

Nayeon releases her grip silently, walks ahead and suddenly Jeongyeon thinks it is infinitely more scary to be alone. She stands in the dim glow of the setting sun and can't stop herself from nearly shouting:

“I don’t want to know all these things about you, Nayeon, what you like and don’t like, what you think about the future and what you think about love. I don’t want to feel like I know you, and then care too much about you, and then—”

“Lose me to the exile of ex-trainee status?”

Jeongyeon pulls out her flip phone. Nayeon standing tall in front of her, the sunset framed behind her, pleated skirt, light breeze— 

_Click._ Nayeon’s face isn’t even visible because of the backlighting, but Jeongyeon saves the photo in her favorites folder anyway.

Nayeon walks back up the road, till her face is so close to Jeongyeon’s she can see the features of it again in great detail, aegyosal and bunny teeth and everything she's come to know so well over the past year. And then in a tone of voice that stirs her heart Im Nayeon says:

“I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?” Her hands are clasped tightly together in front of Jeongyeon, and her eyes are filled with affectionate sincerity.

“I hope that you'll be part of my forever.”


End file.
